Notion’s Ivan Zhao: The Refounder

Why It Matters

Notion’s AI‑first transformation shows how SaaS companies can rebuild product, culture, and go‑to‑market strategies around generative AI, reshaping talent models and competitive dynamics.

Key Takeaways

• Notion rebooted twice: 2015 Kyoto and 2023 AI‑focused Cancun offsite.
• Company shifted from PLG-only to AI‑first, tech‑driven product development.
• Hiring now favors agency, curiosity, and “taste” over seniority or experience.
• Organizational structure flattened: small manager spans, AI as central decision layer.
• Marketing reorganized into storytelling teams directly aligned with rapid product cycles.

Summary

In a candid conversation, Notion co‑founder and CEO Ivan Zhao describes himself as the company’s “refounder,” recounting two pivotal resets – a 2015 move to Kyoto that secured product‑market fit, and a 2023 AI‑centric off‑site in Cancun that re‑engineered Notion as an AI‑first SaaS.

Zhao explains how the rise of generative AI forced Notion to abandon its pure PLG playbook. Development now starts with the language model, treating AI as the “steel” that enables taller, more flexible organizational structures. Hiring criteria have shifted from seniority and experience to agency, curiosity and a personal “taste” that aligns with the company’s values.

He uses a jazz‑band metaphor to illustrate the new culture: a small, improvisational team where designers can code, engineers can evaluate, and senior talent guides junior “coding agents.” Marketing was split into storytelling squads that sit next to product, reflecting the need for speed in an AI‑driven release cadence.

The discussion signals a broader trend for SaaS firms: AI is becoming the central decision layer, flattening hierarchies, redefining talent economics, and demanding new go‑to‑market models. Companies that emulate Notion’s rapid AI integration and talent‑first hiring may gain a competitive edge in the evolving knowledge‑work economy.

Original Description

Ivan Zhao, founder and CEO of Notion, joins me to introduce a new contender in the founder mode debate: jazz mode. Ivan has a different take than Jack Dorsey's circular org chart or Brian Armstrong's player-coach approach. He thinks hierarchy is human nature, and that you can't flatten it away but you can build a company that improvises like a jazz band instead of marching in formation. Notion has roughly 60 ex-founders on staff and a deliberately decentralized structure to make that work.

We get into why Ivan rebuilt his engineering org around a barbell — super junior ICs paired with very senior architects — which is the opposite of what most AI-pilled CEOs are doing right now. He explains why building with language models is "more like brewing beer than engineering a bridge," and how Notion's first candidate interview no longer involves a resume.

Ivan is the king of refoundings. He's done it twice, once from a small apartment in Kyoto with five employees left, once from Cancun the day he got early access to GPT-4. When I was running HubSpot, I described our scale-up years as boring compared to what's happening now. Ivan's advice for any CEO who's calcified and wondering if it's time to blow it up: feel the AGI first, then trust your body when it tells you to move.

00:00 Introduction

02:22 From Founder Mode to AI Org

11:00 Hiring for Taste and Agency

24:28 Refounding Notion in Kyoto

30:27 Craft Versus Commerce

32:26 When to Refound

34:07 GPT-4 Refounding Shock

45:35 Leadership and Founder Energy

53:17 Sales Culture and Closing Thoughts